Divine Madness

At the end of my last article on Empedocles, he claimed that the only way to make our way through the illusions of this finite material world is through Strife or “Madness.” This was according to Peter Kingsley, an internationally renowned expert on the Western tradition’s philosophical and mystical roots. In his book Reality, Kingsley cites Plato, who says there are actually two kinds of madness.

Two Kinds of Madness

“There are two kinds of madness. One is the pathological madness we are fairly familiar with. And yet there is also a divine kind that has the ability to pull us out from our routine world of habit and bring us closer to the gods.”

These forms of madness can make us much more than human or much less. Once we let go of the known world, we can completely sink into the pits of hell or soar to the beauties of heaven. We can fall deeper into despair or shed all our impediments and discover who and what we really are.

Two Falls

 In my previous article linked here, I discussed how Empedocles said Love was not the element that lifts us out of the misery of this world, but Strife is. It is Aphrodite’s Deceptive Love that, according to Empedocles, is what pulls us out of our heavenly abode and casts us into this world of illusion and despair.

So there are actually two falls. The first fall is from the heavens into Aphrodite’s kingdom. The second is from Aphrodite’s world into our present finite earthly existence.

Empedocles is here to help us find our way out of the mess of this world, in the same way that Adam and Eve had to struggle through pain and sorrow to find their way back home after being thrown out of Eden.

Both kinds of madness listed above result from the Strife that occurs when we violate Aphrodite’s rules and are thrown out of her kingdom and into the finite world. Only by embracing this Strife can we find our way back to our true home in the heavens.

But, according to Empedocles, to embrace Strife, we have to embrace madness. We have to see that our worldviews and values are lies. Up is no longer up, and down is no longer down. The world becomes a scrambled mess.

Nietzsche’s Madman

In his “Parable of the Madman,” Nietzsche explains what happens to the madman when we murder God (or blows up our worldview).

“How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker?”

Nietzsche gives a good sense of a madman who has lost his moorings in a world that never had any.

Such is the plight of the madman when he discovers that everything he holds dear has been a lie. So, what do we do? This dilemma is why Empedocles says once we are cast out of Eden, so to say, one can either go completely insane, finding nothing to hold on to, or be liberated, finding our eternal soul, a safe harbor from all these illusions. 

Finding Our Eternal Self

The key is to find that eternal aspect of ourselves. For those who do, madness becomes the path out of the illusion. For those that don’t, madness completely envelopes them. In short, we have to learn how to die before we die. Can we see the illusions in front of our eyes for what they are? Real, but not real.

Can we learn to dance properly in this world of illusion without being overwhelmed by it? Can we adjust our vision to see the illusions and simultaneously see beyond them? This is no small feat, and to help us in this endeavor, Empedocles offers us his services.

Kingsley compares this to the Shamanic initiation ceremony. According to this tradition, to be liberated from this world, our body must be dismembered, torn up into tiny pieces, with the pieces scattered about in different directions. Then we will re-member ourselves, becoming a new person with a new body with access to another world. In short, we will have died before we die.

Controlling Madness

Kingsley says that to reach this level, we have to control our madness. 

“Madness has tremendous power, and to keep one’s focus in the eye of the storm also requires immense power.

“To try controlling it with our thinking minds is hopeless because something far deeper is needed: a trust and sense of direction that only come from the soul.”

He goes on to make this comment,

“One light brush with insanity is enough to smash every neatness to pieces. It crashes through our objectivities and common sense as if they were made of paper. 

“Madness is to know what it means not to have been born and never to have been born, to watch the stars turn to dust and attach no significance to this whatsoever.”

The Tibetan Book of the Dead Weighs In

Kingsley says clinical insanity is just the inability to hold on to the purity of such a state. In other words, the illusions of this world overwhelm us, leaving us nothing to hold to. This is what The Tibetan Book of the Dead says happens when we haven’t prepared for death. 

It says during the dying process, we go through five stages of the dissolution of our physical body and three stages of the dissolution of our inner subtle body. At the end of this process, with everything stripped away, we are left naked and vulnerable before the absolute. 

Can we abide in that moment, or will we blink? Will it be too much for us? It all depends on how much we have prepared for this moment. How much spiritual work have we done to ready ourselves? Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for death to find out. We can go through this process while alive.

Dying before we die is what Empedocles is asking us to do. Kingsley comments,

“For madness is not only insanity. It’s also what brings release from all our little sanities—gives sorcerers the freedom they need to do the impossible. 

It is what calls to us, crying out for us to come home. And it’s what takes us home, at last.”

 

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